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Comment by 9oliYQjP | Hacker News Reader

China's great until you have to go to court there and realize you're being totally screwed over because your opponent has an "in" with the government. There are countries like Australia and Canada that strike a nice middle ground between too much and too little regulation, have decent, stable economies right now, and solid relationships with China in the case you want to partner with a company there. But I've heard too many horror stories from entrepreneurs getting burned in China to want to put all my chips in that stack.

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> But I've heard too many horror stories from entrepreneurs getting burned in China to want to put all my chips in that stack.

I had a girlfriend who was working at a Chinese media company five years ago, and her company said something unpleasant (true) things about an important company in the local province. The mayor called up the newspaper, and was pressuring them... it turned out alright in the end, but it was a minor headache.

If you're doing business somewhere where political influence plays in court, you should just factor that into the cost of doing business and take the mayor out to eat once in a while and do something nice for a local charity or university. The small time/money to be invested in that is still probably less than the costs of compliance in more regulated places (who also have corrupt laws, but the corruption is further upstream - see AirBNB... hotels don't pay off the judge, they pay off the governor).

I would also be concerned about the legal system in China, but political pressure on the media is very widespread in europe as well. During the Iraq war, the entire BBC top management was fired for being critical of the war. In many European countries, polititians are the bosses of journalists at the most important TV stations.

Do you have a citation for that BBC claim? I don't recall anything remotely like that.

There was a lot of government pressure over the 'dodgy dossier' scandal, but nothing like 'the entire top management' being 'fired'. (By who? The BBC Trust?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC "The 2004 Hutton Inquiry and the subsequent Report raised questions about the BBC's journalistic standards and its impartiality. This led to resignations of senior management members at the time including the then Director General, Greg Dyke. In January 2007, the BBC released minutes of the Board meeting which led to Greg Dyke's resignation.[19]"

I followed the events very closely back then. It's interesting that you should mention the dodgy dossier. It was a dossier that the government presented in parliament as an intelligence report when in fact it was lifted from a thesis paper and then sexed up by government officials. This was a clear case of fraud. But none of the so called independent inquiries even looked at this dossier. They preferred to look exclusively at another dossier that was less troublesome for the government. I watched as much of the inquiries as was possible and I came away thinking, what a farce, what a complete farce. The government ordered the inquiries, they defined the narrow mandate of the inquiries, they appointed the people who conducted the inquiries, everything. And the inquiries didn't ask the questions that would have been tough for the government.

Instead they used a minor note taking mistake by a small radio reporter to pressure the BBC leadership into resignation. I heard interviews with Greg Dyke afterwards. They were plain and simple fired and the renewal of the TV license was used as a lever.

> see AirBNB... hotels don't pay off the judge, they pay off the governor

The law you're thinking of allows having guests as long as you actually live in your residence. My impression was that it doesn't actually affect AirBNB because of this.

In most cities that's true, but in a handful of big cities (mainly NYC and, from what I've heard, London), a large proportion of the AirBnB listings are actually quasi-hotels, listed by management agencies that are subletting dozens of condos, or even unlicensed hotels "subletting" out a whole building or large part of one. It shouldn't affect individuals renting out spare rooms, though, which is the less-shady part of AirBnB.

Canada is a clear win. Set up a corporation in a single day. Fairly straightforward taxes (not the lowest around, but still fairly simple). Technical cities (Waterloo, Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa). Zero corruption, unless you're in the construction industry, but effectively nothing. Easy employee termination (2 weeks pay without cause, 0 weeks pay with cause). Low occurrence of lawsuits, especially medical, and much smaller settlements (highest medical suit I've heard of in my personal circle was $100k, and it was clearly deserving). Technocratic politicians usually win elections. Only about 1% of GDP on the military (vs 2+% for most of the developed world, and 5% for the US). Easy access to American products and markets.

But the weather sucks.

http://www.theweathernetwork.com/weather/caon0441

http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/storm_watch_stories3&#...

I assume he's actually trolling us.

Canada is a great choice. Singapore or Hong Kong would be ok. Various Eastern European countries, or Ireland, or Australia or New Zealand -- all great.

The only reason I would put a small business in China is a manufacturing business, or a services business focused ON CHINA. A services business focused outside China based in China is utterly insane. You have the language issue, the undeveloped legal system and business support system, the high cost of top-tier expats, and all sorts of political risk.

There's also the "can I connect to this outside Internet service today?" risk.

As I recall, people said companies can generally VPN out, but that adds to your costs (paying the external VPN site, plus latency, another single point of failure, etc.).

To add to the win (and part of the reason why I'm planning to leave the US for Vancouver ASAP):

* Tax breaks (such as the federal SR&ED[1]) for high-tech businesses. I believe Vancouver has the largest by province, especially if you're in entertainment technology (like special effects) or video games.

* They consider themselves not a melting pot but a mosaic of people; i.e., there is no jingoistic pressure from the bumper-sticker patriots for foreigners to join the suburban zombie horde and conform conform conform, aside from at least learning english or french. Plus, you can sort of feel a fondness (rather than a passing, almost aloof acknowledgement) of their natives (deferentially called "First Nations"). The culture is one of acceptance, rather than impatient urgence to adapt.

* There is an odd reluctance to trusting outsized corporations, especially from what I've seen in Vancouver. Maybe it's just me, or perhaps it's their culture, but where I am now in the US, there are miles upon miles of strip malls with the same 30-40 chains and/or big box stores (Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Bed Bath Beyond, TJ Maxx/HomeGoods, Olive Garden, Dollar Tree, etc.) and small business storefronts (aside from family-run ethnic restaurants) are almost non-existent. I see alot better mix of corporate behemoth vs. mom-and-pop shop in Vancouver. Could just be a big city thing (although, last I checked, NYC was looking more like a concrete version of a big-box store suburb rather than its "if I can make it here..." bootstrappy romantic past).

[1]Strategic Research and Experimental Development - http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/sred/

Re: third bullet point, it is definitely a big city thing. I haven't seen Vancouver suburbs, but those of Toronto are not substantially different from you would see in rest of North America, though perhaps not as bad as the worst examples.

Hope you enjoy Vancouver!

India has a fairer legal system. It offers a great balance between what Max wanted and what you describe. I'm curious why didn't India come up as an option for Max.

Maybe it's because of visa issues or because India is so notorious for red tape. Personally I would feel much more comfortable in a democratic, english speaking country such as India where human rights and freedom of speech are taken more seriously.

India has it fair share of massive bureaucracy and bribery corruption. Plus the basic infrastructure is rather lacking. You don't want to buy electric generator when you are small.

In all major metros, infrastructure is as good as anywhere in the else. Your argument about electric generator was valid 5 years ago, not today.

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